REVIEW - TweakFS

REVIEW – Expansion for Flight Simulator 2004
Expansion for Flight Simulator 2004 – REVIEW
TweakFPS
The software is described as a “scenery
mode utility” which sums it up perfectly. It’s
not a virtual magic wand that you can wave
over your PC and cure all display ills, but
rather a time- and sanity-saving utility
which provides, at its most basic level,
eight different presets that give you various
options to control your FS settings,
including such features as aircraft textures,
AI density and weather effects as well as
autogen density, mesh complexity and
terrain textures.
The logic behind the utility is simple;
there’s little point in making your PC work
hard on displaying features that are
MULATION PR
ODU
HT SI
C
FLIG
• CL
T
T•
weaking the numerous display
variables in Flight Simulator to give
the best overall sim performance
for the type of flying you prefer is
something that most of us either love or
hate – or simply don’t have the time to do
properly. For every user happy to spend
hours fine-tuning settings and
experimenting, there are just as many – and
quite possibly a lot more – who find this a
time-consuming chore that cuts down on
their flying time and who look on the
FS2004 .cfg file as something of a mystery
best left alone. What we all have in
common, of course, is wanting the best
combination of these settings to provide a
smooth and stutter-free FS experience –
essentially a better and more consistent rate
of frames per second. If you’re of the nontweaking persuasion, then TweakFPS has
been developed specifically to make your
life very much easier.
ASS
IC
The one-click display solution
You have been warned – but don’t worry! The Restore option means that
trial-and-error value changes aren’t permanent, providing the perfect
opportunity to experiment
CLASSIC
Clear and simple – a brief description accompanies each of the eight presets
irrelevant for the type of flying you’re
doing; optimise your display and the frame
rates you’ll get will be improved. Your
flying might be purely in airliners, or maybe
only cross-country VFR jaunts consume
your flying hours; in this case you’ve
probably discovered the optimum settings
that work best for your preferred airborne
excursions. Many of us, on the other hand,
like to take advantage of flight simulation’s
ability to let us jump from an A320 one day
to a prop trainer the next, IFR to VFR as the
mood takes us, and PMDG-style complexity
to WWI biplane simplicity, depending on
the time and brain power we can devote to
our desktop flying – this is where TweakFPS
comes into its own.
certainly beats playing with the 40+
relevant variables in the FS2004 .cfg file.
All you need to do is launch the program
from the desktop icon and select one of the
scenery mode presets from the simple main
interface before flying. Once you’ve
launched FS2004 from the TweakFPS menu
button, your choice will appear in the main
Flight Simulator menu bar and you’ll soon
find that the settings used to define the
presets are clearly the right ones; clicking
just one button before launching a flight
PMDG’s 737-600, with 2D cockpit on the
runway at Heathrow, gave us 7.4 fps, going
up to 15.6 under the IFR-AI Traffic preset in
TweakFPS and 22.2 under the IFR-Best
Performance setting – an increase of 200%
at the touch of a button.
A few tests on one of our office PCs (2GHz,
512Mb RAM, GeForce3 Ti 500 graphics
card) showed how the utility performs;
these tests were done with a 1280x1024x32
screen resolution, the target frame rate set
to Unlimited and FS2004’s settings at their
defaults (which are relatively high in terms
of graphics display).
The default Cessna 172SP with 2D panel at
Seattle-Tacoma gave us an average of
8.3fps; this went up to 9.4 using the
TweakFPS VFR-Normal setting, and we saw
a massive increase to just over 40 fps under
the IFR-Best Performance preset.
The differences you’ll notice between your
current settings and any preset will, of
course, depend on how much time you’ve
The values that make up each section of a preset can all be edited and saved. Value range pop-ups are a handy feature
26
PC Pilot Issue 30
This is a simple visual demonstration of how the program works. If you’re flying VFR
you’ll want detailed scenery displayed (VFR-Normal mode, top); IFR flying means
devoting your PC’s resources to in-cockpit display and turning down unnecessary
scenery detail with one click from the TweakFPS menu (IFR-Best Performance
preset – lower image). Note the difference in frame rates!
The wonderful thing
here is that you can
play with values and
settings with
Those with experience of manually editing a .cfg text file can still use their
impunity; if your
hard-earned skills via the TweakFPS Settings button
combined changes to
already spent setting everything up before
any preset don’t work out quite the way
installing TweakFPS, but you’ll have been
you envisaged, all it takes is one click to
limited to just one array of settings to cover
restore the default TweakFPS setting. Users
all flight scenarios, so having these extra
who are already familiar with editing the
options readily available is a real
.cfg file manually can edit the current or
time-saver.
original .cfg manually, but with the
advantage of doing it through a quick and
If the presets aren’t quite to your taste you
easy interface.
can customise each one as you see fit and
even edit its name and accompanying
The interface – in common with the whole
menu description accordingly. Click on the
program – is very well thought out and it
Config icon in TweakFPS and you’ll be
shouldn’t take more than a few minutes
presented with a list of categories in which
before you know your way around the
the variables can then be edited. Selecting
various options. Knowing that the safety net
any one of the values and holding the
of the Restore function is available means it
mouse over it will bring up the range of
won’t take long before you can delve
adjustments available, so you have some
further into the workings of the .cfg file
idea of just how much you can change the
without worrying that you might be
value. You can’t actually add extra presets
wreaking havoc with your FS2004 set-up.
but only amend those included, with the
TweakFPS makes a simple job of a complex
exception of the Original FS9.Cfg setting
one; it’s easy to use, foolproof and
which is protected.
PC Pilot Issue 30
complete with enough user-friendly tools to
customise its functions to your personal
taste. If your flying time is limited, you’ll
find that the program repays you in spades
for a very reasonable outlay and the oneclick improvement in frame rates will have
you wondering, as we did, why no one has
thought of it before – try the demo on the
cover CD.
■
Joe M. Besser
Review Score
Publisher: TweakFS
Price: €8.95 (£6 approx.) for 2Mb download
Website: www.tweakfs.com
Developer: Fermin Fernandez/TweakFS
At a glance: Simple, effective, user-configurable and
with a useful safety net built in – a bargain for
anyone short on time or tweaking confidence.
System Requirements: 1GHz+, 64Mb RAM, 32Mb
graphics card, 20Mb free hard disk space, Windows
98/Me/2000/XP
Recommended: Windows XP strongly recommended
for the best visual results.
27